joining me now, senior economics writer or for "the wall street journal" steve moore. steve, thanks for making it in today. >> hi, jamie. we're having a white christmas in chicago. so it is a lot of fun. jamie: i know chicago, burr. the numbers are also pretty chilling for retailers who do what percentage of their business during the holiday season? >> you know, those months of november and december are absolutely crucial, jamie, for the retailers. about 40 to all their business all year is done in those two holiday months. so it's, not very good news that the retail numbers came in, you called them lackluster. and that's probably putting it charitiably. this was the worst year since 2008. it is actually, surprising, jamie, because if you look at some other indicators, consumer confidence had actually bumped up a little bit in the last couple months. we have, i wouldn't read too much into this because other indicators of the economy are looking up right now. jamie: so do you think it's an anomaly that it isn't going up? is it an indication if we go over the fiscal clif